The suicidal Prime Minister Bruce Golding / Government Refutes Gleaner's Claim that Manatt, Phelps & Phillips was Engaged on Behalf of the Jamaican Government / Prime Minister of Jmaica Bruce Golding

Perjury and obstruction of justice simply mean that at some stage he lied and then attempted to cover up the lie. Were it not for the political vote of the Democratic Senate, which acquitted him, he would have been booted out of office.

At present, Prime Minister Golding has invited himself to the way of the gallows, all over again. Damning e-mails carried in the August 22 Sunday Gleaner confirmed what most public commentators, including myself, had long deduced - that the engagement of US law firm lobbyists, Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, was undertaken by the government of Jamaica and not by the JLP - as Golding, his government and hardcore JLP supporters would have us believe.

Even applying 10th grade logic, how could the JLP engage the services of a go-between to lobby the US government to act effectively in contravention of existing Treaty arrangements between the US and Jamaica at the very time that the Jamaican government is formed by the (same) JLP administration, which is duty bound to honour such agreements? Would that not be obstruction of justice?

But even if the JLP had engaged Manatt, that still would not let Mr Golding off the hook because it would mean that a clandestine arm of the government, led by none other than the prime minister, was acting covertly, while publicly we were being fed a diet of lies to explain the delays in the extradition of Dudus.

The prime minister insists, in the face of much evidence to the contrary, that at the time of the Manatt appointment, he had conveniently divested himself of the PM label and was JLP leader. According to the latest release from the Office of the Prime Minister, Golding was acting in his role of JLP leader and maintained as his objective the JLP appointment of Manatt.

Even if hardcore JLP supporters would like to buy into Golding's position, where is the evidence of this? Why did the OPM in issuing the release not provide this evidence? Well, it is my belief that it cannot provide any, because none exists. Why do I believe that? Simply because it is obvious that the engagement was a government-to-government one.

Months ago I had written in an article that if the prime minister refused to come clean on the Manatt issue, by the time the air cleared, the nation would be demanding more than Golding's scalp. It seems that we are at that place now.

Also caught in the cross hairs of this conspiracy to deceive the Jamaican people are two government officials, the solicitor general and the attorney general. Based on their feigned ignorance and apparent ease in being used as puppets by their political masters, they have unwittingly expressed a desire to be relieved of their posts. How can Dorothy Lightbourne, the attorney general, and Douglas Leys, the solicitor general, continue? How can they be trusted any longer?

It is not as if many of us did not know this all along - that the power once wielded by Dudus extended to the highest rung of the JLP government. It is not that many of us had not laughed at the government's puerile attempt to lead us round the mulberry bush as various spokespersons on its behalf told us that the Manatt appointment was a JLP one. It is not that we did not see the gaping hole in Golding's sham apology as he threw away a grand opportunity to come full frontal and tell us the truth.

The real hurt is the evidentiary confirmation that a conspiracy of lies existed and that it was led seemingly by the very prime minister that some of us, including myself, were prepared to forgive because we knew more about the power of Dudus than we were prepared to admit in the pages of a newspaper. The salt in the wound of that hurt is that the government, caught in a big lie, cannot now admit anything new and launch into the Great Apology, Chapter 2. It is forced to continue lying, to ensure that the first deception is seen (for the records) as truth.

One cannot apologise for an apology.

But the ultimate point of all of that hurt is that the government and the prime minister actually believe that we the people are fools.

Politically the government, led by the "new and different" Bruce Golding of 1995, has given way to Golding the surreptitious in the present times, the man who must be trusted at our own peril.

The belief trend in the rungs of the JLP administration is that the PNP is in no position to assume the responsibility of government. JLP ministers and government officials have been able to convince themselves that as long as the economy continues its slow crawl up the poverty position we were in three years ago, as long as "one-one" jobs return, as long as interest rates veer in a downward direction, as long as the PNP remains in its push-pull mode, the next election will see another JLP win.

Whether that is true or not, that political arrogance is rife among some in the JLP Cabinet and could probably explain the government's present stance.

It is my belief that with glaring evidence to the contrary, the government is forced to hold to its story that the Manatt appointment was a JLP one, because in doing so, it can continue to refuse to tell us who was the basic source of funding in paying Manatt, Phelps and Phillips.

One lie forces itself on another. The press releases from the information ministry have not indicated, as did the e-mails carried in the Sunday Gleaner, one document with "JLP" on it or e-mails emanating from Belmont Road, yet we are expected to believe the drivel and the tissue of lies.

With the publication of the emails, I cannot see the country breathing free again any time soon. The only thing the prime minister can add to the mix is giving us the source of the funds that were used to pay the Manatt firm. While he is at it, we would also like him to explain why a decent, committed Jamaican, Dr Ronald Robinson, was forced to resign over the Manatt issue.

Of paramount importance, and all things being considered, once the breach of public trust has reached socially and politically unacceptable proportions as they have now reached, the one decent path to take is the prime minister's resignation. That is the only escape route. Of course, he would be forced to lock arms with the attorney general and the solicitor general as they all head for the exit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with Responsibility for Information, the Hon. Daryl Vaz Issued by: The Office of Prime Minister Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with Responsibility for Information, the Hon. Daryl Vaz today said that the story carried on Sunday in the Gleaner concerning the Manatt, Phelps and Phillips (MPP) issue has not revealed anything of substance that has not been publicly stated previously by the Prime Minister.

Minister Vaz reiterated the position of the Government that the Government did not engage in any contract with MPP. The Prime Minister gave the party explicit approval to engage with MPP and made it clear that this was not an engagement with the Government of Jamaica.

In making specific reference to an email written by Mr. Harold Brady in which mention is made to "Briefing the Prime Minister", Minister Vaz said that it was erroneous for the Gleaner to have relied on this email as proof of an official Government of Jamaica engagement. Minister Vaz emphasized that this email was written by Mr. Brady and not by the Solicitor General.

Minister Vaz said that Prime Minister Golding has always maintained that the engagement of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips was an undertaking of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and not that of the Government of Jamaica. Nothing in the Gleaner's story and indeed any of the emails has challenged this position.

Minister Vaz pointed out that in the Prime Minister's Statement to Parliament on May 11, 2010, he said:

"From the investigations that I have made, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips were led to believe that Mr. Brady was acting for the Government of Jamaica rather than the Jamaica Labour Party and that their engagement was authorized by the Government of Jamaica."

"Manatt, Phelps & Phillips has relied on these meetings between its representatives and government officials and the email correspondence to which I have referred as authentication that it was acting on behalf of the Government of Jamaica. However, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Harold Brady is not a consultant to the government and was never authorized to act on behalf of the government or to engage the services of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to so act. Manatt, Phelps & Phillips registered the Government of Jamaica as its client without the knowledge of the Government or without the appropriate authorization of the Government."

Issues
The newspaper article has also pointed to the following issues:

1. 
   
2. The first email contact between the Solicitor General and Manatt, Phelps and Phillips of September 19, 2009:

   The existence and content of this email is not a new issue. The Prime Minister in his Statement to Parliament on May 11, 2010, acknowledged that:

   "from as far back as September, Mr. Brady had contacted the Solicitor General to discuss issues relating to the extradition request. These discussions included e-mail correspondence sent to Mr. Brady, at an e-mail address provided by him, which it was subsequently discovered, is an address belonging to Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. The correspondence related to issues concerning the extradition request which the Government of Jamaica had raised with the US Government."

   This statement is also supported by the Solicitor General's letter to the Gleaner of August 18, 2010, wherein he states that he was unaware at the time he sent this email to Mr. Brady that it was not Mr. Brady's personal email address.

3. Emails regarding Press Release drafted by Manatt, Phelps and Phillips December 28, 2009 onwards:
   

Again the existence and content of these emails is not a new issue. The Prime Minister, in his statement to Parliament on May 11, 2010 said:

"Mr. Speaker, it has already been acknowledged that the Solicitor-General and other government officials who went to Washington in December for a meeting with officials of the State and Justice

Departments met with representatives of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips at the invitation of Mr. Brady. It has also been acknowledged that a representative of the firm offered and was allowed to attend the scheduled meeting with the State and Justice Departments officials but, of significance, took no part in the discussions."

"In discussions between the Solicitor-General and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips following the meeting with the State Department and Justice Department, it was suggested that a draft release be prepared on the outcome of the meeting. Email correspondence ensued between the Solicitor-General and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on the contents of the release but the issuing of the release was eventually not pursued."

"The emails had to do with setting up a conference call to discuss the contents of the draft release. And the conference call, I am told, lasted fifteen minutes. A representative of Manatt made some suggestions. There were some amendments made. The decision was eventually taken not to pursue it primarily because time had elapsed. The meeting was the 17th December and by the time all the connections were made and the conference call took place, so many days had passed we were virtually into Christmas and, therefore, the issuing of the release was not pursued. It was to have been a release that we would have put to the US Government to see whether or not it could be a joint release from both governments arising out of the meeting that was held on 17th December."

In his letter to the Gleaner, on August 18, 2010, the Solicitor General stated that:

"I was prepared after my meeting to recommend to the Hon. Attorney General that MPP was a firm whose services we could definitely use in the future to advise the Government on legal issues in future anticipated negotiations.it was in this in this context that the firm offered to draft a joint press release intended to be distributed the following week as to the outcome of the meeting."

To reiterate what the Prime Minister further said in Parliament:

"I will challenge anybody, including those who I know have access to information, to produce one document from an appropriate officer in the Government of Jamaica, whether the Attorney-General, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, myself or the Solicitor-General, any document, that represents a formal engagement of this legal firm by the Government of Jamaica."

In light of these statements made publicly in Parliament more than three months ago, the email correspondence published by the Gleaner newspaper on Sunday contains nothing materially new.

In dismissing the Gleaner's claims, Minister Vaz also reiterated the Prime Minister's previous statements that he acknowledges that the "Manatt affair" was a mistake, and sincerely regrets the negative effects that have resulted.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Civic leaders from western Jamaica have expressed shock over revelations that Prime Minister Bruce Golding was complicit in the hiring of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to lobby the United States government on behalf of alleged crime boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

"As far as I am concerned, Mr Golding is once again in a serious pickle. A pickle that questions his trustworthiness and credibility," said political commentator Lloyd B. Smith.

"Revelations coming out of the email that were published in The Sunday Gleaner clearly indicate that there was a conspiracy, some linkage between the Government and the whole business of seeking to use whatever persuasive power the Government had through this legal firm to deal with the Christopher 'Dudus' Coke extradition."

Well-known businessman Mark Kerr-Jarrett said he was very disappointed that this issue was not fully exposed at the outset.

"One thing that we have to learn as a people and teach as parents is that, when you tell the truth and the whole truth, you only have to tell it once. This saga has become an ongoing shame and an embarrassment to the people of Jamaica," stated Kerr-Jarrett.

"I hope that this is the end of it. It is a terrible blemish on the country and the leadership of the nation."

The Trelawny Chamber of Commerce were to meet last evening to discuss the developments in the Manatt saga, to craft a detailed response to the issue.

"We were very disturbed about the original deception related to this whole issue and to consider that there is a greater level of deception is disturbing to us," said chamber president Richard Bourke. "I can only say that the Trelawny Chamber has not been able to get full disclosure on this matter of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips."

By Barrington Flemming, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU: